Tag Beatitudes

On Spiritual Mood Swings

Todd R 3 Comments
Photo by Kenny Eliason on Unsplash

Life is often a battle with inconsistency.  We go from feeling good about our situations and God’s favor, to feeling like we are in a spiritual desert, and back again like a pendulum.  Knowing this, God provides verses like Psalm 126:4-6, which says:

“Restore our fortunes, O LORD,
            like streams in the Negeb!
Those who sow in tears
            shall reap with shouts of joy!
He who goes out weeping,
            bearing the seed for sowing,
shall come home with shouts of joy,
            bringing his sheaves with him.”

The metaphor is a comparison to the south of Israel, which has a very dry climate, yet experiences flooding in a rainstorm.  The Negeb also is mentioned in the story of Caleb and his daughter Achsah.  Her inherited land was in the infertile Negeb, and she asks him also for springs of water, which he gives her.[1]

Like Achsah’s father Caleb, our Father God also provides for us in our seasons of trouble.  Here, the Psalmist compares tears to seeds, reminding us that in the dry times as well as the times of overflowing blessing, God is with us, using those circumstances.  Our current loss is future gain, and our current time of suffering is bound and measured by God’s will, like the Babylonian exile was measured at 70 years[2] and the year of Jubilee came after every 49 years[3].  After our time, we will enter His rest and rejoice eternally.

In this life we may experience spiritual and emotional extremes, like drought and flood in the desert.  Don’t overreact to the pendulum swing but count your tears as seeds.  Pray that He will restore your fortunes and thank Him that our seasons are in His hands.

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.” – Matthew 5:4

[1] Joshua 15:18-19
[2] Daniel 9:2, 9:24
[3] Leviticus 25:8

A Constant Need for Righteousness

Todd R Leave a comment

Jesus’ famous Sermon on the Mount begins with a series of Beatitudes, a series of statements that begin with “Blessed are…”  These may be seen as a random collection of sayings, but I think they are in an intentional sequence.  Not a sequence where we need to master the first Beatitude before learning the second, but like gears in a machine that all need to work together for the machine to function, and weakness in one place affects the entire machine.  Jesus was explaining specific parts of becoming more like Him.

The first three Beatitudes tell us that we are blessed if we are “poor in spirit” because we know to depend on God to know right and wrong, that we are blessed for being “those who mourn” because we feel the pain caused by sin in the world (both our own sin, and sin collectively), and know God will comfort us, and that we are blessed for being “meek”[1] when we submit willingly to God’s direction, knowing it is better than following our own spirit and better than adding to the negative impact of sin on this world.

Then we get to the fourth Beatitude in Matthew 5:6 – “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.”  How does this follow from the first three?  The idea of “hunger and thirst” provides the answer.

No matter how much we eat or drink, hunger and thirst return after time.  Therefore, no amount is ever enough, and true righteousness is like that.  After one, or even several, instances of meekness, or submission to Christ’s righteousness, we can’t stop and then go about our own way.  It isn’t enough to satisfy God’s righteousness standard.  We need to have an ongoing appetite for it that is never fully satisfied.  It needs to be part of our very nature to desire ongoing spiritual nourishment from following Christ.  If we “taste and see that the LORD is good”[2] we should want more!

We naturally know that if we do not eat, our bodies decay – but first we feel hunger and thirst – driving us to eat and drink.  But it is less obvious that if we do not come to God regularly for sustenance, our souls decay.  If we do not indulge our appetite for righteousness, we revert to thinking our spirit is strong, that sin has no negative consequences, and that God’s authority can be disregarded.  We will not find the kingdom of God, be comforted, or inherit the earth, as the first three Beatitudes promise.  However, every time we come to God we are reminded of the splendor of His kingdom, the comfort of His salvation, and the inheritance we have in Paradise, which surpasses anything this world has to offer.  Walking with the Spirit is like food and water to our soul, bringing us “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.”[3]

The sons of Korah wrote at the beginning of Psalm 42:

“As a deer pants for flowing streams,
            so pants my soul for you, O God.”

Yearning like this for righteousness does not come naturally to any of us, but God promises if we follow our spiritual appetite, we learn that:

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.”

[1] Matthew 5:3-5
[2] Psalm 34:8
[3] From Galatians 5:22-23

Religion That Epitomizes Love for God and Neighbor

Todd R 1 Comment

What is religion?  In the Bible we get one definition from James 1:27, which says: “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.”  This may sound like a nice sentiment for a Hallmark card instead of a religion, but James was not resorting to hyperbole for mere effect.  He meant what he said, but what does he mean?

Photo by Robert Guss on Unsplash

Jesus Himself said that to love God and to love your neighbor were the greatest commandments, in a way the highest form of religion, so James is probably using “to visit orphans and widows in their affliction” as the purest, most undefiled form of love.  In James’ time, orphans and widows were the people genuinely unloved by the world – the ones who fell through the cracks of society.  Not only were they without a husband or parents, but society was not providing for them either and they were truly abandoned “in their affliction.”  Anyone caring for them would get no credit or recognition for it.  Therefore, the only motive for visiting them is love for them.  Pure love, with no impurity or stain from a desire to get something in return.

James specifically refers to “God the Father,” who has always taken His own, and His people’s, responsibility to widows and orphans seriously.  He wants to take care of them, but Psalm 94:6-7 says about the rulers of the nations, including Israel: “They kill the widow and the sojourner, and murder the fatherless; and they say, ‘The LORD does not see; the God of Jacob does not perceive.’”  They preyed on those nobody cared about, and also boasted that not even God cared.

When any group of people – even one with God’s institutions of His law, temple, priests, prophets, and kings ruling the literal promised land – neglects the oppressed, their religion is impure and defiled.  All institutions – including ones provided by God – are useless outside of God’s purpose for them.  The temple was a way to approach God by sacrifice, foreshadowing Jesus’ death on the cross, but Judah used it as a way to appease Him so they could do their own thing.  Jeremiah criticized the religious leaders of his day, who thought they were free from judgement, repeating “This is the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD,”[1] treating the temple as more important than God Himself and a reason God would always bless them.  However, God doesn’t want us to follow a checklist of religious observance – He wants us to be His loving family.

Because they replaced love with empty religion, Israel was cast into exile under the Babylonians, and Jeremiah cries in Lamentations 5:3 that “We have become orphans, fatherless; our mothers are like widows.”  Perhaps God would teach compassion to His people through painful discipline and experience, having to live like those they ignored.

Unstained
Visiting widows and orphans keeps one unstained from the world when society thinks it’s ok to leave some behind.  That it’s ok to think we can’t do any better and that God doesn’t see, and that He doesn’t have an answer for it.  That if we follow the letter of the law, or rely on institutions, but not on the spirit of love, God will just look the other way because we tried our best.

Therefore, don’t visit widows and orphans because its popular, because a law tells you to, or for any reason besides Godly love, because when we mix in worldly motives, we risk loving only those who are popular to love or who our government and culture have put in favored positions.  Maybe we even reduce love to a comment about distant people trending on social media at the time, and not those individuals who are actually suffering the most.  These people are often right in front of us.

It is by ministering to specific widows and orphans in their need that the Christian retains the preservative power of salt and the illuminating power of light to the world.[2]  It’s not the idea, but the actual visiting that is pure and undefiled.  Me writing this and you reading this is only an idea.  But it is a beginning.

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
Heaven is for people who love when there’s nothing more at stake than the person being loved.  Only Jesus has met the standard of this love, but He has made a Way to Life for those willing to accept His Truth.  Jesus willingly takes our stain on the cross, and gives us His righteousness as a free gift, but only if we actually want His righteousness more than we want our stained world.  In Christ, the Father will change His people into people who care for widows and orphans.  People like that don’t need anything else to make a perfect society.  It’s loving people that make a perfect society, not rules and institutions, and certainly not good intentions that leave people behind.  Paradise will be a society that is pure, undefiled, and unstained, and where the only Institution needed is Jesus, our Prophet, Priest, and King.

No better solution exists than God the Father’s plan to build a family where everyone loves Him and loves their neighbor as themselves, and when we visit widows and orphans, we illustrate the truth that God sees them and cares for them, even when nobody else does.

Visiting widows and orphans is Religion that epitomizes love for God and neighbor.

—–

Look for more posts based on James 1:27 in the coming Saturdays.  The more I think about the verse, the more implications of it I see.  Next Up: Religion That Applies in all Places and Times.  There are always widows and orphans.

[1] Jeremiah 7:4
[2] Matthew 5:13-16

“Let Not the Flood Sweep Over Me”

Todd R 2 Comments

Yesterday’s post was about Jeremiah’s comparison of false religion to a broken cistern, with God alternatively being “the fountain of living waters.”[1]  Jeremiah lived when most of God’s people – including most of the priests and prophets – had turned from Him to follow other gods.  As Jeremiah remained faithful, correctly predicting that Jerusalem would fall to Babylon, he was persecuted, including this instance in Jeremiah 38:6, where King Zedekiah’s officials “took Jeremiah and cast him into the cistern of Malchiah, the king’s son, which was in the court of the guard, letting Jeremiah down by ropes. And there was no water in the cistern, but only mud, and Jeremiah sank in the mud.”

Since God is “the fountain of living waters,” the only path to eternal blessing, it’s incredibly ironic that Jeremiah, one of the few remaining faithful prophets and therefore a rare source of God’s “living waters,” should be cast into a cistern with no water.  Perhaps it was broken.  King Zedekiah thought he could silence the “living waters” Jeremiah represented by casting them into a cistern, trading truth for falsehood.

Photo by Mishal Ibrahim on Unsplash

Later, Jeremiah seems to recall the cistern experience in Lamentations 3:52-57, where he said:

“I have been hunted like a bird
            by those who were my enemies without cause;
they flung me alive into the pit
            and cast stones on me;
water closed over my head;
            I said, ‘I am lost.’
‘I called on your name, O LORD,
            from the depths of the pit;
you heard my plea, ‘Do not close
            your ear to my cry for help!’
You came near when I called on you;
            you said, ‘Do not fear!’”

Returning to the book of Jeremiah, we read that Ebed-melech, an Ethiopian eunuch, heard of Jeremiah’s situation and pleaded his case: “My lord the king, these men have done evil in all that they did to Jeremiah the prophet by casting him into the cistern, and he will die there of hunger, for there is no bread left in the city.”[2]  This unlikely source – a foreigner – was Jeremiah’s deliverance from God to rescue Jeremiah from the well.  Ebed-melech gathered 30 men, “Then they drew Jeremiah up with ropes and lifted him out of the cistern. And Jeremiah remained in the court of the guard.”

Jeremiah was not the only Old Testament figure to suffer for his faithfulness.  Many years earlier, King David also referred to “sinking in the mire” in the Messianic Psalm 69, verses 14-15:

“Deliver me
            from sinking in the mire;
let me be delivered from my enemies
            and from the deep waters.
Let not the flood sweep over me,
            or the deep swallow me up,
            or the pit close its mouth over me.”

David knew this feeling of sinking came not because of his sin, but when he was faithfully serving his Lord.  David’s “sinking in the mire” happened under these circumstances from verse 9 of the same Psalm:

“For zeal for your house has consumed me,
            and the reproaches of those who reproach you have fallen on me.”

In Jeremiah’s case, as well as David’s and that of Jesus, whom Psalm 69 foreshadowed[3], we know that cannot judge our faithfulness based on whether it improves our circumstances.  When we do, we might stop being faithful because it seems we are “sinking in the mire.”  Being reproached by the world and feeling down aren’t the circumstances we prefer, but “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”[4]  Through these and all other circumstances, God develops in us deeper trust in Him.

Therefore, with David may we pray:

“But as for me, my prayer is to you, O LORD.
            At an acceptable time, O God,
            in the abundance of your steadfast love answer me in your saving faithfulness.” – Psalm 69:13

And in His time, He will deliver us, perhaps in ways we don’t expect.

Coda

In 1995, Christian rock group Jars of Clay released their self-titled album, and the track “Flood” has similar themes to this post.  The song was also a mainstream hit, charting as high as No. 12 on the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart,[5] amazing for a song that is essentially a prayer like David’s in Psalm 69.

You can check out the song’s lyrics here: https://genius.com/Jars-of-clay-flood-lyrics

Or, if you have 3 ½ minutes, watch the music video here:

[1] Jeremiah 3:13
[2] Jeremiah 38:9
[3] John 2:17, 15:25, Acts 1:20, Romans 11:9-10, 15:3
[4] Matthew 5:10
[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flood_(Jars_of_Clay_song)

Rewind Wednesday is Also Blessed are the Meek #6!

Todd R Leave a comment

This Rewind Wednesday not only revisits an old post about a cornerstone, but also provides a capstone for the series on “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth,” the third Beatitude from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5.  “Creation vs. Anti-Creation” was first posted on May 28, 2021, as the second-ever post to this blog.  In it was an as-brief-as-possible history of creative forces working with and against God in this world but culminating when “All God’s people will inherit a perfect heaven and earth” where “All creative forces will be aligned to achieve perfection.”

The Beatitudes tell us the meek are blessed, but also why they are blessed: because God will give them the earth as an inheritance.  Not this stinky one, but a perfected one.  Heaven will be full of people made like Christ, who perfectly follow His law of self-sacrificial love.  Both creation and character will be made whole.  However, if we don’t agree on His definition of “perfect” then neither will we humble ourselves and be meek, nor will we inherit the earth.

Even if our early efforts at following Christ are imperfect, without those early efforts the later efforts may never happen.  What can you build on the cornerstone of Christ?

Read “Creation vs. Anti-Creation” at the link below! (Estimated reading time 10 minutes)

Creation vs Anti-Creation